ANAMBRA TO MOVE AWAY FROM FERTILIZER TO REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE FROM 2023 — AGRIC COMMISSIONER
REPORTER: UCHE NDEKE
Anambra State Government says it will no longer subscribe to the distribution of fertilizers and herbicides to farmers in the state from 2023.
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Foster Ihejiofor, stated this while addressing farmers in Ogbaru Local Government Area.
According to Dr. Ihejiofor, many farmers were not able to afford the agro chemicals and high input farming method, hence the need to discourage the practice.
The Commissioner said the Governor Soludo led administration had concluded plans to embrace the more sustainable way of going about farming, which would be regenerative agriculture.
He explained that from 2023, farmers would be encouraged to practice the new order, which is dependent on nutrients recycling, using the left over of crops planted to fertilize the soil.
“Our forest system don’t require fertilizers day by day but yet they survive and bear fruits. You go into the forest, you harvest leaves, ukazi, Uziza, Utazi, pears and rest of others and they all grow without any fertilizer.
“I want to tell our farmers that after this year, the Anambra State Government under our health conscious Governor, Chukwuma Soludo intends to mainstream Regenerative Agriculture.
“It copies nature, promotes biodiversity in plant and microbes and also encourages the symbiotic relationship between the microbes in the soil and the plants to maintain productivity to profitable levels,” Dr. Ihejiofor said.
The Commissioner for Agriculture said that all over the world, the concern had risen that high input chemical agriculture had set backs because the more farmers applied the agro chemicals, the more the soil required them every year.
Dr. Ihejiofor noted that there were much benefits from the regenerative agriculture, which included helping in curtailing climate change and global warming ravaging the world.
The Agric Commissioner revealed that experts would be coming into the state to teach farmers how to move from the conventional farming to regenerative agriculture, which he said is Eco friendly and profitable.
